International genre film is hotter than ever this year, and Shudder just snapped up its next big thing. FANGORIA is excited to partner with IFC Entertainment to reveal that they’ve acquired Species, the French-language body horror from director Marion Le Corroller that premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival.
Directed by Le Corroller from a script she co-wrote with Thomas Pujol, Species (released in France as Sanguine) stars Mara Taquin, Karin Viard, Sami Outalbali, Kim Higelin, Clément Bresson, Sonia Faïdi, Benjamin Mendes, and Étienne Langar. The film’s synopsis is as follows:
Margot begins her internship in the ER, where she struggles to adapt. Very soon, she finds herself treating patients her own age with unexplained symptoms. The frequency of these unusual cases leaves her wondering, especially as she begins to notice increasingly alarming symptoms on her own body.
Species is Le Corroller’s feature directorial debut, after working on short films like Melted Doll and Dieu N’est Plus Médecin. The film is produced by Carole Lambert for Windy Production, alongside co-producers André Logie, Gaëtan David, and Alain Attal.
“My initial desire was to film bodies battered by the world of work,” says Le Corroller. “Bodies striving, at all costs, to adapt to a hostile, high-pressure environment; bodies undergoing metamorphosis; bodies molded to the needs of the market; bodies stripped of souls…I began to ask myself: what if, in order to withstand the violence of the professional world, young people had no choice but to mutate? What if new forms of humanity emerged as they entered the job market?
“Species is thus a genre film that speaks to youth. It felt essential that the hospital be the film’s primary arena. At first glance, it may seem far removed from a trading floor, a factory, or a fast-food chain — but that would be to overlook the performance pressures now imposed on such institutions. This highly symbolic setting embodies a central paradox of our time: the imperative to generate profit in a place meant to care for human life. In this sense, the hospital becomes the nerve center where suffering bodies converge.”
Species arrives on Shudder in 2027. Stay tuned to FANGORIA for more updates.
